


swords and chill

by boomerangst (SevereChill)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gross Abuse Of Terrible Christmas Carols, I Swear This Is Wholesome, Winter Things™, and some light mutual stalking, but I promise it's not as creepy as I just made it sound, did someone say mutual pining, or not because miroku's here but you get it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-02-19 02:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13114074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevereChill/pseuds/boomerangst
Summary: Miroku likes Sango. Sango likes swords. They're both idiots.





	1. what's your hurry

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Inuyasha Secret Santa, Molly!

 

**i. what’s your hurry**

 

Everyone agrees that it’s the perfect job for Miroku. Mostly because women under the age of forty so rarely cross the threshold, and to quote Inuyasha, “he can’t make an ass of himself if there ain’t anyone to hit on.” True enough—most of the people who frequent antique shops are middle-aged and elderly women, the one demographic that seems to find Miroku charming and amusing rather than, as Inuyasha so eloquently puts it, “gross.”

He’s lucky, his friends tell him, to have found a job so securely out of the way of temptation. He certainly wouldn’t last long in Inuyasha’s position at the campus gym. All those hot, _flexible_ girls in shorts and yoga pants, all of that bare skin on display, glistening with sweat…

Well. It’s probably for the best that Miroku works at Mushin’s. It’s an easy job most of the time—arranging old knick knacks, unlocking glass cases, talking up the fine qualities of mint condition this and mahogany that. The only drawback is the boredom, the long, empty stretches when the bell over the door is still and he’s left to his own devices in the musty silence of the shop, with only dusty lamps and blank-eyed porcelain dolls for company.

At least, now that summer is drawing to a close, he’ll soon have plenty of homework to keep him occupied. In the meantime he fills the quiet spells with pointless busy work. Today’s project, for example, is reorganizing all of the books in the side room into chronological order.

He’s reached the 1920s and is checking whether _Cake: An Indulgence_ should go before _Arrowsmith_ when he hears the sound.

It’s a quiet scuffing, not unlike the sound the sole of a shoe might make on the concrete floor of the next room. But who could have entered the shop? Miroku hasn’t heard the bell chime.

_I propped the door open_ , he recalls, rising to his feet. The shop had smelled particularly strongly of mothballs this morning, and there’s a pleasant, cool breeze outside. Someone must have come in.

_Scuff, scuff._ There it is again. It’s rather eerie, thinks Miroku, avoiding the gaze of a one-eyed rocking horse. He knows he ought to announce his presence, and see if whoever it is needs any assistance. But his own steps are soundless as he pads across the rug to peer through the doorway, an image already half-formed in his mind of the shuffling old man in loafers who is probably perusing the display of collectible coins.

But the coins are untouched. Someone has discovered the umbrella stand full of swords, and has apparently decided to take the rusty Taisho-era katana for a test drive. That someone is now twisting up and down the one wide aisle, slashing at an invisible enemy, and she is definitely not an old man in loafers.

She’s a girl, probably somewhere around his own age, in sandals and shorts and a plain green top. A dark brown ponytail whips through the air as she pivots, sword tucked along her arm and shoulder before she sweeps it out in front of her, twirling it in a lightning-fast figure eight. She clearly knows what she’s doing. Miroku wonders where she learned such an obscure skill.

She hasn’t seen him yet, and he’s aware that every second he watches her without announcing his presence makes him more of an irredeemable creep. All the same, he can’t quite bring himself to interrupt. She makes an arresting image, whoever she is. He finds himself holding his breath as her feet leave the floor in a spin-kick, sun glinting off the katana’s blade as it swishes upward.

“Impressive,” he says.

He hadn’t intended to speak aloud. The girl makes a noise halfway between a gasp and a yelp—and fumbles the sword as she lands. It slips out of her hand just at the zenith of its arc and goes sailing past Miroku to clang into a knock-off Tiffany lamp, which topples from its perch with a crash.

The girl looks from Miroku to the lamp with wide, terrified brown eyes. “Oh my God,” she stammers. “Do you work here? I’m so sorry—I’m…I didn’t…”

“It’s fine.” Miroku waves her apology away as he goes to investigate the damage. It isn’t fine, not really, but he’s never been good at prioritizing _things_ over _people_. Especially people who, now that he gets a proper look at them, are _gorgeous_ , and so perfectly his type. ( _What type’s that, the type with a pulse?_ says the Inuyasha-voice in his head.)

A sizable section of the lampshade is shattered, but the base is unscathed. They can still move it, with a little luck. Miroku turns his attention to the sword.

It’s a replica from the ‘20s, made to look much older. The handle is inlaid with something pink, maybe rose quartz, that peeks through the dark cloth binding in little slivers. Aside from some rust on the blade, it’s in very good condition. The crossguard isn’t even tarnished. “Excellent taste,” he murmurs, picking it up.

“I’m so sorry,” she says again, looking absolutely mortified. “I didn’t mean—I can pay—I know I shouldn’t have—I just, I’m—swords,” she falters, as if that explains everything.

Miroku can’t resist a little teasing. “You’re swords?”

She shakes her head in mute frustration. Her ears are turning pink.

“Don’t worry about the lamp—it’s not an antique,” he lies (it’s very difficult to flirt with someone who won’t stop apologizing.) “Besides, I’ve always thought it was the ugliest thing in here,” he adds confidentially.

“Oh, but I—“

“Truly, it’s nothing. Don’t trouble yourself,” he tells her, cheerfully insistent.

She seems about to protest, but before she can, the door clangs even farther open and another girl barrels in. “ _There_ you are—I’ve been looking everywhere! Emergency, we have an emergency! You’ll have to play with swords later because I need you _right now_ ,” she announces all in a rush, grabbing the first girl’s arm. She has darker hair than the sword girl, and a manic glint in her eyes.

Sword Girl looks torn. She takes a step closer to Miroku, away from her friend. “Oh, but—”

“No buts!” the friend insists. “It’s _you-know-who_ , I need a buffer! Right now!”

Sword Girl takes a shaky breath, still focused on Miroku. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Please, if there’s anything I can—“

 

“I meant what I said—don’t worry about it,” he reassures her, reigning in the desire to reach out and touch her elbow. This is not at all how he is supposed to handle situations like this, but she’s so pretty, and looks so embarrassed—and besides, her friend needs her help. “Far be it from me to come between friends. Go be a buffer,” he urges, careful to keep the amusement from his voice.

“See? He gets it,” chirps the energetic girl. “Now come on!” She tugs Sword Girl toward the door, and Sword Girl goes willingly, sparing only a last, regretful glance for Miroku.

 

* * *

  

“And that was it?”

“That was the extent of the interaction, yes,” sighs Miroku. Fat, wet raindrops spatter the campus map he’s double-checking. “It’s this way,” he announces, tucking the map back into his pocket.

Inuyasha follows, eyeing him skeptically. “No pick-up lines? Ya didn’t even hit her with the old ‘bear my child’ routine?”

“I’ve told you, Inuyasha, it’s called the Door in the Face Technique. You make a difficult request that’s certain to be refused, then follow it up with a smaller request that seems reasonable by comparison. I’ll have you know it’s been very effective at getting women to agree to a first date,” says Miroku.

“Yeah, what girl doesn’t love a good _door in the face?_ ” Inuyasha rolls his eyes. “I don’t get it,” he adds, kicking a rock into a nearby puddle with a splash. “You’re the biggest sleaze I know, can’t go ten damn seconds without hittin’ on some woman or other, and you didn’t even get this one’s name? How’s that possible?”

“Bad luck and poor timing,” Miroku laments. “I suppose she’ll have to be the one that got away.” There are a couple of girls in rain boots walking in front of them, and one in particular has a _fantastic_ ass—it’s too bad her upper half is obscured by a pink umbrella.

“Yeah, I can see you’re real upset about it,” snarks Inuyasha. “Ugh. How far is this class? Lousy fuckin’ weather.”

The humanities building isn’t far. In nicer weather Miroku might have followed the rain boot girls when they peeled off to the left ahead of him, but Inuyasha’s mood is enough incentive not to risk it today. They find the class they’re looking for, Survey of Modern World Religions, and climb the stairs to take seats toward the back of the rapidly filling lecture hall.

Miroku is just taking out his laptop when he happens to look up and— _there_. There, in the doorway, shaking out her pink umbrella—Sword Girl. It had been _her_ earlier, with the incredible ass. She had dashed out of Mushin’s store too fast for him to get a proper look then, but now here she is. They have a class together. He can hardly believe his luck.

Looking around the room, he notices there’s only one empty chair left—the one beside Inuyasha. “Switch seats with me,” Miroku urges.

“Huh? Why?”

“It’s her. She just walked through the door.”

Inuyasha cranes his neck to see who Miroku is talking about. “Who, the sword girl? That’s her? You want me to move so you can hit on some girl?”

“Yes, yes, and _yes_.”

“I ain’t movin’ unless there’s something in it for me.”

“Very well. If I hook up with her, I will buy you an entire crate of ramen.”

If Inuyasha were a dog, his ears would have perked up at that. “Picante beef?”

“ _Yes_. Now please, she’s coming up the stairs!”

Mollified by the promise of ramen, Inuyasha complies with minimal grumbling. Miroku slides into his vacated chair just as Sword Girl turns into their aisle. She picks her way gingerly toward them, muttering apologies as the other students roll their chairs aside to let her pass. It’s her, all right. Miroku racks his brains for a good opening line—so far all he can think to say is “broken any lamps lately?” and somehow he can’t imagine that one will go over too well.

She sits down in the chair beside him without looking up—she hasn’t recognized him. Better line, he needs a better line. Something like, “I didn’t know they were letting swords take this class,” perhaps? That’s better, though not ideal. Still, nothing else seems to be presenting itself. He’ll have to go with the swords.

He’s taken a breath and is about to speak when the door slams, hard enough to shake the desk beneath Miroku’s elbow. The professor bustles in—a diminutive elf of a man, in a state of high dudgeon. 

" **W ELCOME to SURVEY OF MODERN WORLD RELIGIONS! My name is PROFESSOR JAKEN. YOU may call me SIR. There will be NO NEED TO TALK IN THIS CLASS! If you’ve READ your SYLLABUS you will no doubt have seen THAT I HAVE A ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY FOR TALKING! Anyone who TALKS will be asked to LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.**"

His voice sounds like gravel in a food processor—Sword Girl pauses in the process of taking out her notebook to physically wince at the sound. That’s going to be rather trying to put up with for three hours a week. 

Worse still is the no talking policy. Is he really expected to sit next to this girl for a full ninety minutes without making a single overture? (What is he, a monk?) Miroku studies her profile, her slightly pursed lips and downcast eyes, intent on the syllabus before her. No, this is far too delicious an opportunity to pass up. He’ll just have to think of some way to keep his overtures silent. It’s fortunate that he has always enjoyed a good challenge.

 

 


	2. mind if I move in closer

 

**ii. mind if I move in closer**

 

Kagome hasn’t stopped talking since they reached the caf. “—And by the way, thanks for saving me from Kouga the other day. I know being a buffer isn’t your favorite thing.”

And that’s as good a segue as any. “Kagome, he’s in my religion class,” blurts Sango.

“Who, Kouga?”

“No, the guy from the antique store.” It’s too late now to admit she knows his name—from when she called the shop and spoke to his boss, to apologize for the lamp thing—without seeming weird. She picks uneasily at her sandwich.

Kagome rubs her hands together. “Oooh, Hot Antique Guy! Did you get his number?”

“What? Of course not! I destroyed half his store and then ran out. He must think I’m a disaster. How can I just—just talk to him normally after a thing like that?”

“By using your vocal cords and moving your mouth,” says Kagome serenely. She takes a long slurp of juice.

“It really wasn’t a good start for a relationship,” Sango points out.

“And if you think that, you really need to watch more rom coms. So you made a bad first impression—so what? What’s the harm in talking to the guy?”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to!” Sango protests. “Our professor has a strict no talking rule—anyone who tries gets thrown out of class.” She carefully omits the part where she fled from the room the second class was dismissed in order to avoid any type of interaction with Hot Antique Guy (Miroku—ugh, she isn’t supposed to know his name. She resolves to try and forget it.)

Kagome is persistent as ever. “So talk to him after class! I’m sure he’s forgotten all about the sword thing by now.”

Sango sighs over her tater tots. “He definitely hasn’t, Kagome.”

* * *

Survey of Modern World Religions is shaping up to be Sango’s worst subject by far. It’s almost as though fate has aligned specifically in order to make the class as interminable as possible.

First, there are those fraught moments before and after class. Sango has so far been late three times because she’s been cutting it as close as possible, trying to slip in at the last second so Professor Jaken can enforce silence before she reaches her seat. She’s rapidly becoming his least favorite student.

To make matters worse, she has to sit next to Miroku—yeah, on second thought, it’s probably better to think of him by name than as Hot Antique Guy—for the full hour and a half, due to Professor Jaken’s insistence that permanent seats make it easier for him to take attendance. She is always careful to face straight ahead in case of accidental eye contact, but it isn’t as though she can forget Miroku exists when he’s right _there_. Sometimes she thinks she can feel him watching her. Most days it’s all she can do not to fidget and squirm for the entire class. Her notes are a disaster.

It’s difficult to say when she leaves him no opportunities, but it seems as though Miroku might be trying to speak to her (to say something horrible about the sword incident, no doubt.) Once he slides a piece of gum across the desk to her, and she freezes up, wondering what it means. Maybe gum is some kind of universal symbol for “you owe me $800 for that lamp you broke” that she just doesn’t know about.

“You’re being ridiculous!” Kagome keeps insisting. “He didn’t seem like the type who would say something bad about the sword incident. He told you to go be a buffer for me, remember? He was nice.”

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that I made a complete fool of myself in front of him,” Sango reminds her.

“Oh, please. This isn’t an embarrassment thing. This is a _crush_ thing,” says Kagome. “I think you just don’t want to talk to him because as long as you don’t, you can imagine that he might like you back.” Of _course_ she’s at her shrewdest about the things Sango doesn’t want her to notice.

“This isn’t the seventh grade, Kagome,” mutters Sango. “And I barely know him. I don’t have a _crush_.”

“Hey, adults get crushes! And I keep telling you—you could _get_ to know him. By _talking_ to him.”

But Sango refuses to budge. She’ll just have to suffer in silence until December—it’s only another month. She can do it.

Except.

Well, except for this one little thing that keeps happening. This one thing she hasn’t even told Kagome about.

She first noticed it sometime around the third week of classes, when things were just settling into a routine. It was an hour into Religion, and her nerves were finally beginning to calm, and she had nearly— _nearly_ —forgotten who she was sitting beside, when she reached around for her bag, which was hanging from the back of her chair, and _her elbow brushed against Miroku’s_.

She had almost jumped. How could this have happened? She was always so careful to position her chair as far from him as possible! And yet, somehow, she was a foot closer to him now than she had been at the start of class, and her heart felt as though it were using the inside of her ribcage as a trampoline.

Of course, if that had been all—just one incident, one time she had to catch herself, flush with embarrassment, and scoot surreptitiously away—she could have handled it. She knows she could have. Only, it _keeps happening_. Not every single class, but frequently. She’ll look up from her notes and he’ll be _there_ , looming out of her peripheral vision, and every time it’s a desperate scramble to roll a safe distance away before he notices.

The charitable explanation for the chair phenomenon is that, well, their chairs have wheels. Perhaps the floor has a slight incline, and that’s what’s causing her to slide toward Miroku without noticing it. The less charitable explanation is that Kagome is right, and Sango has a huge, pathetic, capital-C _Crush_ , and because she refuses to act on it, it’s begun manifesting in other, more horrible ways, like some kind of romantic poltergeist. Ways such as causing her to subconsciously drift closer to Miroku like an absolute creep.

Just a few more weeks, she reminds herself. Just a few more weeks until finals. She’s the only person she knows who’s really looking forward to finals week.

When it arrives, it’s one of the coldest weeks on record. The sky is a menacing shade of gray, always on the brink of snowing. Students hurry back and forth with their heads down, bundled up against the bitter chill, or linger indoors as long as possible.

Her Survey of Modern World Religions final goes fairly well, all things considered. She’s studied twice as hard for this class to make up for all her distraction and tardiness, and it pays off. When she gets up to hand in her test, she’s almost… _disappointed_ to find her chair is in exactly the same position in which it started. She’s not going to miss being a nervous wreck three hours a week, but, well, she might miss sitting next to a cute guy. It’s a little anticlimactic, the way the whole thing is ending. Not that she expected anything to come of it, no matter what Kagome says.

She waits too long to book her flight home, and in the end the only one she can afford is on the Sunday after finals week. The last finals are scheduled for Friday morning, and by afternoon, campus is deserted. Kagome offers to linger and keep Sango company for an extra day, but she has a long drive home, and the morning’s flurries have become a full-on blizzard, so Sango tells her to leave while she can.

It’s getting dark, and everyone she knows has gone home, and it’s sort of…spooky. When she pushes the door open, even the hallway light in her dorm is off. Sango hopes they’ve remembered to leave the building’s heat on, at least.

The caf is closed and all she has in her room are energy bars, so she bundles up and prepares to trudge through the snow to the McDonald’s on the other side of campus. She doesn’t usually go for fast food, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Most of the sidewalks haven’t been shoveled since morning, before several more inches of snow piled up and started sticking to them, covering up the icy places, so she has to pick her way slowly across the quad. She’s never noticed how _big_ campus is until now, when there are no jostling crowds to fill it. The dim glow of a blue light in the vast shadow of the Student Union looks positively gloomy.

The sound of approaching footsteps, slightly muffled by the snow, makes her heart jolt in her chest and her steps quicken. A dozen different horror movie scenarios are flashing through her mind, until a voice calls out, “Hey!”

She’s only heard it once before, but a glance over her shoulder confirms it—Miroku. Oh, God—just when she’d thought she'd never see him again! Sango speeds up without thinking about it. She’s wondering frantically whether it’s too late to pretend she hasn’t heard him when there’s a “Hey, wait— _umph_ ,” and she turns just in time to see Miroku slip on a hidden patch of ice and go careening down the sidewalk, arms flailing until he faceplants spectacularly into a snowdrift.

“Miroku!” She turns and hurries over as fast as she dares, heart in her throat. Great—just _perfect_ —now she’s caused _him_ to have an accident. She’ll never forgive herself if he’s hurt.

By the time she reaches him, he’s hauled himself into a sitting position. “Are you all right?” she asks, breath curling upward in little spirals.

He doesn’t answer. He’s looking at her very intensely, especially for someone who seconds ago was pinwheeling his arms as he tried not to tumble into a snowdrift. “You know my name,” he says.

She’s caught off guard, with no excuse ready. Her mind goes completely blank. “Oh, I—I, um—”

“Now you have to tell me yours.”

“It’s Sango.” She’s so relieved not to have to explain herself that it just comes out.

“Sango,” he repeats, grinning like it’s the best answer she could have given him. He hasn’t moved out of the snowdrift, and his hair is flopping into his face in a way that can only be described as _goofy_. “There, now, was that so hard? I’ve been trying to talk to you all semester.”

It figures he’d be the annoyingly friendly sort. Sango only just stops herself from rolling her eyes. “I take it you’re not injured?”

His grin turns rueful. “Oh, no, I’m very much injured. I seem to have twisted my ankle when I slipped.”

“Then why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Perhaps she was right to avoid him all semester—it’s been ten seconds and she already wants to throw her hands up in exasperation.

“I was merely prioritizing. I’m afraid you’ll have to help me up, if you don’t mind,” he says, and it’s not like she can refuse.

But when she hauls him to his feet, he lets out a hiss, and his leg buckles a little. Sango has to maintain her hold on his arm to keep him from collapsing back into the snow. “You can’t walk,” she pronounces.

“So it appears. Not far, anyway,” he agrees, tone finally beginning to reflect the seriousness of their situation.

Sango looks around at the empty campus, the air thick with falling snow, the street that hasn’t been cleared yet. Even if she calls an ambulance or an Uber, there’s no guarantee it will make it out here in this weather. There’s only one possible solution. Decision made, she slings Miroku’s arm over her shoulders.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a precise schedule for this, but parts 2 & 3 should be up over the next couple days! stay tuned


End file.
